Scandal
by Moment For Life
Summary: After the sinking, Cal deals with the aftermath of his feelings of Rose, her affair with Jack and the anxiety he feels over the truth coming out. One - shot. (Not related to a Very English Scandal)


**Hola! I am back with something new, well just a one shot, inspired by Queen's brilliant song **_Scandal. _**I am still working on A very English Scandal (nothing related to this story at all !) and also Night Train as well as working on a pt 2 to The Interruption. Thanks for reading.**

**Scandal.**

''_Please don't. Don't talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, since that is something you understand. From this moment you do not exist for me, nor I for you. You shall not see me again. And you will not attempt to find me. In return I will keep my silence. Your actions last night need never come to light, and you will get to keep the honour you have carefully purchased.'' The glare which she fixed him was icy, cold, brutally so. She was unrecognisable. ''Is this in any way unclear?''_

The ice had changed her. The journey had begun with such exciting promise, even amongst the regular melancholia she had suffered with so badly, Cal had sensed the joy beneath the mood. They would return home to wed, where she would finally belong to him. Become Rose Hockley. Be his **wife.** But she had taken another route; one he never believed an innocent, young girl like her would be so capable of. She had taken another man, allowed him to do the things only a husband should do to her. Sharing herself with a stranger when her own fiancé was willing to take her the same way all along.

The scandal. She had left him, and the whole world was going to know. It would turn his life into a laughing stock. His family would be mortified of her whoreish actions. Society would chatter, newspapers would print the headlines and he would be unspeakable of. His name would be tarnished, dragged through mud and his peers would point, watch and mock him.

He was undeniably broken. He had lost her. She had left him. For a man of very little meaning, money or social status. A man with nothing but an unwashed coat, untied laces and ten bucks in his pocket. A man who she didn't know. A man who had probably made her silly promises of a better life which she had fallen for. Stupid, naïve girl.

Their love was broken. Cal had pleaded, for once in his life. Over and over again, for God's sakes. Yes, he had seethed; struck her face, handled her in a way a woman perhaps shouldn't but could blame be laid at his feet when her actions had been so vulgar? Why had he pleaded so hard for her to return to him when her behaviour was so disgusting? Why should he still want her for a wife, to take her into his own bed when she had so easily given her innocence away to another?

There was no healing his wounds. He was a fool, an utter fool. He had been warned that she was a pistol; very much her father's daughter...impulsive, naïve and jaded. He had welcomed that, having thrived on a challenge and finding every other woman so very easy in every way. He needed that extra excitement of keeping Rose Dewitt Bukater in check and succeed where others had seemed to struggle. To win that fight would be victorious; the day where she would bow to him as his wife, love him and honour him the way he requested and carry the heirs he required in order to continue the family steel. Yes, motherhood would calm her. She would have found tranquillity in raising their sons and perhaps even a daughter to keep her busy and pass on her love of crochet, fashion or luncheon at the park. That was the life which he had planned for them.

Yes, he had been a fool. She had been bad news. She had left him bleeding, wounds exposed to the outside world in a way which he had never experienced before. Betrayed hadn't covered it. Having the gutter rat arrested and thrown below decks should have been enough to end their little affair and ensure Rose knew just what the way would be from then on, but she had run after him like a schoolgirl in love. Jumped from a sinking ship to be with him. Endangered her own life to save his. Given up her freedom to be with him, potentially to the very end.

She had angered him beyond all belief. Their embrace at the bottom of the staircase had been too much and his rage had boiled over. Taking a gun, aiming and firing at them several times seemed to be the only outlet for such a crazed, jealous man but with shaking hands, blurred vision and unsteady footing, he had missed every single shot. They had taken off into the freezing cold water, decks below dry land and it was then, Cal knew that they had won. He wouldn't fight any longer. They were as good as dead. The diamond in her coat would sink with her. Their choice had been made. Utter fool.

But she had lived. With **him. **The odds were stacked up against them yet they had survived. Rose's mother had cried upon his shoulder for days, he had searched for days for any sign of her life and yet, there he had found her; beneath a ratted blanket, her hands into his, eyes upon each other's in steerage. Fools in love.

_Yes, I lived, how awkward for you..._she had spat. She had changed. He sensed that from the start. Dawson had stood back, allowing Rose to approach Cal alone. There was no cower, fear or emotion. He had changed her, perhaps even turned her into a woman. There was no denying that. Her shoulders no longer had the uncertain sag, her eyes were no longer clouded by such curiosity. Jack Dawson had fully opened her eyes; that much Cal was aware of.

He had calmly asked what he would tell her Mother. Her response; _tell her that her daughter died with the Titanic. _Yes, she had. Her back had turned, to return to Dawson. A new life.

''_You're precious to me, Rose.''_

''_Jewels are precious to you, goodbye Mr. Hockley.''_

In that moment, he was stricken. The twist of the knife was slowly deepened as she took her place at the rail with **him. **The Heart of the Ocean had been in her possession, within a black coat unknown to her. Now, it could be anywhere. The coat wasn't anywhere to be seen. He had very little interest in that now. What use was it to him without Rose?

He turned and walked away, informing Ruth that she was no longer a mother and that her daughter was dead. He had then walked away once more. He was alone himself.

A private train had met him at New York Grand Central an hour after the Carpathia had arrived at the docks. He watched the lines of immigrant's head for Ellis Island and the inspection queues as he breezed to the waiting car. **They** were amongst them.

Bulbs had flashed, reporters shouted and he had bypassed them all. It was a private affair, one which he had yet to fully grasp himself. If, Rose had died with the Titanic, then one day he would have rebuilt himself but the ultimate crime had already been committed and so he would suffer. His pride would never allow him to tell the truth. Oh, the scandal. He would lie. His life was twisted and broken. He would play the ultimate grieving fiancé, for he was suffering a great loss after all.

The train was rickety, disturbing his thoughts now and again. The brandy within his grasp splashed as the wheels changed tracks and violently threw him to one side. He had emptied his stomach more than once. Food was unappetising. Condolences were offered routinely. He was bored. Already, life without her was boring. He emptied his glass, then another and another. There, at the bottom of a bottle was where he found some solstice for just a few lousy hours. Then, came the headlines. The scandal.

With a woozy head, he had looked for her name upon the survivors list. It had never appeared; it was as though she had vanished into thin air. As though she had died.

The morning papers came to his breakfast table and each morning, he checked the list routinely. It had taken four days for him to check another one..._**Dawson. Jack Dawson.**_ There it was...and just below it, the words almost jumping off the page to stab another knife into his stomach. _**Rose Dawson. **_

''Hello?''He called, loudly into the empty corridor of his Philadelphia mansion. Seconds later, a butler appeared, tall and ready to serve.

''Yes, sir.''

''I would like a brandy, and a pad and ink.''

''Yes, sir.''

Yes, she had lived. The evidence was on the paper. He scrunched the paper closed and threw it to the opposite side of the long dining table. It was time he made an announcement. It appeared in the newspaper the following morning promptly as it arrived at the Hockley's breakfast table. Front page news. A scandal, yes...but nothing was worse than the truth. He had to hide that. The pressure would return soon to find a suitable bride and so, he would mourn the loss of Rose Dewitt Bukater, after all, she was dead.

_It was confirmed yesterday morning that, Rose Dewitt Bukater, daughter of the late Robert Bukater and Ruth Dewitt Bukater did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. The seventeen-year-old, was travelling aboard the luxury liner with her mother and fiancé Caledon Hockley, of Hockley steel, whom she was due to marry in just two weeks' time. _

He closed the paper. He had read enough. The article would cover him. The scandal had to remain unknown. It had to.

It was another seventeen years before Caledon Hockley set eyes on Rose Dawson again. A huge billboard on Broadway was alight with her name upon it, beneath the neon lights stood a shapely, busty blonde with two young teenage girls and a moustached, handsome man beside her. It was **them. The Dawson's. **She had made it. She had changed; she was a wife, a mother and an actress. Cal walked away. The next day, he put a pistol in his mouth.

That's when the scandal started...


End file.
